Videogamer.com reports development of Dead Space 4 has been cancelled by Electronic Arts (though a next installment in the shooter series has yet to be announced) based on poor sales of Dead Space 3. They attribute this unconfirmed rumor to "a source familiar with the unannounced project" speaking on the condition of anonymity, who tells them the game was in preproduction at Visceral Games, and that a small team at Visceral Montreal was working on prototypes for the project. Their source says Visceral Montreal was closed as a result of the game being cancelled, which supports a report from a couple of weeks ago where a former Visceral Montreal employee claimed the studio's entire staff was let go. They contacted EA for comment, and were told the company does not comment on rumor or speculation (except when they chose to).

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A union isn't the answer. A union will get you what Hollywood has - contract workers rather than employees. That's even worse than what we have now.

EA isn't as much of a problem as they were, anyway. They do far less buying and razing awesome studios these days. They don't have the buying power, but I think they've learned that lesson. A bit.The issue now is more just a function of no one understanding what to do about how much it costs to make a game with cutting edge graphics. Most studios decided the way to handle that is by reducing single player to 6-7 hours.

It isn't just games dealing with this, either. Look at Hollywood now. The most expensive movies of all time are the ones heaviest with CGI - movies like Oz Great and Powerful which is 100% greenscreened cost over $200MM. Nuts. And then the artists doing those effects get laid off and the studios get closed weeks after winning awards. Don't know the answer. Industry leading computer visuals are just extremely expensive...

Agreed.

When the studio for Life of Pi gets shuttered the day after winning an Oscar, there's something wrong with your business model.As an adult gamer who becomes giddy as a school girl on a Monday night waiting for that amazing game to unlock, I fear for the folks who are responsible for creating, and providing me with amazing experiences because the industry is the way it is.